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BY: YOUNG ERHIURHORO
This literary master piece is the short version of the sad tale of my birth as a human being and its subsequent renewal as in second birth if attainable. In most times, I’m thrown overboard and pushed to a cross-road since the beginning of my journey here on earth over four decades ago where I begin to ask myself some philosophical questions like who is to blame? Is it myself, my parents or my God?
On the other hand, in an opposite view, should I thank myself, my parents or my God? At this cross-road, I find it very difficult to provide answers to these questions. Should I tie my woes and sad experiences to my destiny or as a result of a turn of spiritual reinvigoration? The questions here may be endless because of the uncountable woes I have passed through over the years in a foreign land where I strangely found myself without my own making.
Which offence or crime have I committed to be a stepchild in a foreign land? This is a question I have continued to ask without anybody providing me a cogent answer, including the legal practitioners. The truth is that, I was brought to meet my mother at Unenurhie community in the early 1986 where she was receiving treatment at the Igbe Orhe’Ofuafo Oghene Healing Home Inc, founded by the late Uku Sunday Efedudu. Before then, my mother had already married to a new husband, one late Mr. Harrison Puley Atori and gave birth to my only younger sibling, Mr. Michael Orhe-Gharovwe Atori. In this traditional settings, I was now a stepchild to this my mother’s new husband.
Interestingly, I grew up like every other child in the Uku Sunday Efedudu’s palatial compound. I grew up following all the childhood plethora experiences of night plays, story-telling, bird hunting, fishing, farming and other childhood activities. I happily passed through all these human developmental stages to strongly believed and took Unenurhie as my own original hometown and community. I had all my educational training, right from the primary school to tertiary institutions from this very Unenurhie community where I lived with my mother, stepfather and my sibling. It came to an extent where the Uwheru that, I originally came from now sounds as a strange name to me each time it was mentioned. All my belief and thought at this time was that, Unenurhie is my hometown and original community.
However, this my belief and thought have cost me uncountable woes and pains which I’m today regretting as a person for taken this wrong path and unfruitful decision. To start with, I first became the Secretary of the Unenurhie Youth Association under the chairmanship of Mr. Augustine Abrucha aka “Omasa”. After this time, I also served in different “standing committees” under different presidents-general of Unenurhie Community Development Union. The story never ended there, I also took time to participate in the Ohworhu cultural festival as one of the masqueraders. This role I played for many years before I handled it over to a new performer. As the Unenurhie people are very much aware, the selective roles of the masqueraders in the Ohworhu cultural festival are perpendicularly reserved for only Unenurhie indigenes whose paternities are traceable to families in the community. No stranger or maternal child is never allowed to participate in the masquerading activity during the Ohworhu cultural festival.
As if this is the beginning of my story, I grew up in my youthful exuberance to adulthood in this same Unenurhie community. I never at any time moved to Uwheru except, few holidays I spent with my maternal aunt, Mrs. Florence Oyibokure when I was still in primary and secondary schools. I got married to one of their daughters and tried to raise a family of my own. As God would have it, our marital union was blessed with children and tried hard to build my personal house in this same Unenurhie community. Today, I have my personal compound in the community where I’m living with my beloved family. I also have other landed properties yet to be developed in the same community. In this sojourn, I haven’t acquired a plot of land at Uwheru, my original hometown and community. All because I believed Unenurhie was my original hometown and the love I have for it.
My woes at last, today, I’m the Secretary-General of the community under the UCDU leadership of Mr. Peter Maison as the President-General. I have served under this government invariably for two-tenures. This present government will indefinitely come to an end by March, 2025. All through the six years I have voluntarily served the community, all I got from the beginning to the end was humiliations, threats, intimidations, slavery, oppression and defamation from the leadership and the people of Unenurhie community.
First, as a media practitioner and cultural analyst, I have extensively used my career and profession to promote and present Unenurhie community to the Nigerian nation and the global community through my numerous published featured articles; dwelling on different areas of the community such as traditional institutions, cultural festivals, corporate governance, history and identity, traditions and cultural norms, political participation and other important areas. This is a sacrificial service I have embarked upon for so many years even before I was elected as a Secretary-General in this present UCDU leadership. In all these my publications, I haven’t received a dime from those that called themselves indigenes of Unenurhie community. I haven’t also received any financial support from neither an organization in the community nor the community leadership. In writing on these listed areas especially on the relationship between Unenurhie and Evwreni as communities in one kingdom, I found a lot of threats and made many enemies from the Evwreni axis. This was masterminded and engineered by the same Unenurhie people whom I thought I was doing a favour.
Secondly, these past six years of this present UCDU leadership can be termed as the period I have received the highest of humiliations of my life from both Unenurhie and Evwreni people. It has now become a norm and cultural practice that, every little confrontation I might have with anybody (child or adult) from the community, the first humiliating and embarrassing statement to issue to me was that, “You should know that you are not an indigene of Unenurhie community. You are just a stepchild and will soon leave. You are feeling big because of the opportunity our leaders mistakenly granted you.” In fact, every child and adult of the community would always use this abusive statement for me and even my children whenever there is quarrel or confrontation. What sort of humiliation is this! Just try to put yourself in my shoes right now. How will you feel as a person?
Many people in the community have used this abusive statement to humiliate me and my family time without numbers. It gone to that extent where the Odion’Rode-In-Council, which is the highest and supreme arm of the traditional institutions in the community have to summoned a meeting to the ancestral hall of the community. A decision was taken over this defamatory and derogatory statement that anybody who uses it on me or my children would be fined heavily according to the traditional laws of the community. This meeting was presided over by the Otota’Rode of the community, Chief Frank Imudje. Yet, with this pronouncement from the community leadership, many people continued to use the statement to insult me and members of my family, even till date. The community leadership just watched in agape. I have reported many people that used this statement for me to the President-General, Mr. Peter Maison, but he blatantly refused to show concern and sympathy to me, even as one of the UCDU executive member.
This drama didn’t end here too. There are also many Evwreni people that used the same abusive statement for me each time we come together for a meeting or any other social function. The Evwreni people got to know this quickly because the Unenurhie people whom I thought I was one of them went ahead to tell them, all about my history and identity, denying me before my very eyes. They have issued me the threats of taking me to court for all the publications I have done over the relationship between Unenurhie and Evwreni as communities. Yet, the leadership disowned me as one of their own and even telling Evwreni people that, they never sent me to do such publications. That I just did them on my own and therefore, I have to bear the burden and carry the cross on my own. It’s very disgusting and embarrassing!
Conclusively, as I write, the whole community is at the edge of the break down of law and order. This is as a result of the coming 2025 UCDU elections. So many things are rearing their ugly heads. It’s like the present UCDU leadership whose duty it is to conduct the elections is thrown off balance and has no personal decision over the elections anymore. All our plans and preparations to enact credibility, fairness, equity and justice in the elections are now slashed at the corner and of no use again. As a government, since we have no power again to pursue our laid down democratic principles and vision in order to maintain our foundation, I therefore called myself to order that I can’t play with this team anymore because my integrity as a person matters to me and my beloved family. Based on this and my past woes, I was pushed to submit my resignation letter as Secretary-General of Unenurhie community to the President-General, Mr. Peter Maison. This I did just a week ago. I also decided to keep far from the leadership of Unenurhie community in whatever guise. I’m staying there with my family right now as every normal stranger or non-indigene in the community. Thank you for reading!
Young Erhiurhoro is a reporter and a member of the Urhobo Historical Society.
